


Booker's Bullshit: An Essay on Blood

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Essays, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Metafiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rants, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:29:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25999774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: When we were first presented with hints of Booker's betrayal, my initial reaction amounted to me grunting at the screen something nonsensical about how well we were doing, sweetie. I can't deny there certainly was some disbelief sprinkled on top. That's because tropey messes, up until this point, had been avoided pretty darn well. I was digging on not having to deal with too much bullshit in this two-hour ride. It isn't until Booker and Joe are yelling at each other about grief while being strapped to medical gurneys that it hit me how truly and completely Booker believes in what he has done. That he believes this is asolutionto aproblem. And, also, how wrong this man can truly be.Or, Smith spends way too much time pondering.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 77
Collections: The Old Guard Resources





	Booker's Bullshit: An Essay on Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This isn't an essay; this is a rant. (The title is a partial lie, I admit.) I have done ZERO research. This is not an analysis of the film with cited sources and a thesis, rather my opinion in rant form. Don't let the headings fool you! Feel free to agree, disagree and/or be completely indifferent.
> 
> The [Tumblr Post](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com/post/626920334514339840/bookers-bullshit-an-essay-on-blood). If you prefer.

Recognising that Booker is peddling some bullshit he wholeheartedly believes in himself is the first step towards recovery.

When we were first presented with hints of Booker's betrayal, my initial reaction amounted to me grunting at the screen something nonsensical about how well we were doing, sweetie. I can't deny there certainly was some disbelief sprinkled on top. That's because tropey messes, up until this point, had been avoided pretty darn well. I was digging on not having to deal with too much bullshit in this two-hour ride. It isn't until Booker and Joe are yelling at each other about grief while being strapped to medical gurneys that it hit me how truly and completely Booker believes in what he has done. That he believes this is a _solution_ to a _problem_. And, also, how wrong this man can truly be.

**The Mental Decay of Fading Memories**

A memory is a half-truth at best. The difference between fresh river water and distilled hydrogen chalcogenide in a glass.

It can be comforting. It is certainly necessary. It makes up part of who we are. And it is a lie. One that Booker believes in, and one which has caused him to hunt down something he is incapable of understanding. He doesn't understand death, other than his perspective on it as the wielder of such. But, as mentioned, this man is on a quest towards a fix for a problem he doesn't have. Oh, he has _other_ problems, indeed. Issues which he erroneously believes dying will fix, as if the ease of nonexistence could ever obliterate the pain of living.

I recognise both grief and depression intimately. Many of us probably do. The difference is that living involves dealing with these two things, and no one can argue that Booker is far from doing anything close to living. He is existing at best by virtue of being incapable of dying. His body might be winning against death, but his mind has already succumbed.

That is because he is living in a memory of what was and what might have been. He feels guilt for being who he is and for effectively abandoning his family to a fate he hasn't yet met. The probable lies he tells himself about how he deserved the resentment no doubt don't help at all. His thoughts linger on what he had and never on what he has now. The faded memory of a once-lived life is truer and brighter than his current lot.

Dealing with grief is a personal experience. No one can do it for us. No one should push us to do it on their time-frame because how can you tell someone to stop the tears when they insist on falling? But there will be an end. Otherwise, the grief takes over, and that is precisely what happened to Booker long ago, and what he, perhaps unknowingly, let in, for his own reasons. But grief can't fill a void; grief merely feeds on whatever's left until the void is all that there is.

I don't deny that it cannot be easy to live for centuries knowing that any romantic partner will die along the way. That children and grandchildren will wither to bones and dust. But that is the chance we take. Even as regular human beings there is always the chance a loved one will pass before us. That is the gamble at life that we take. The alternative is never having loved at all, which is an option for some of us, but those who seek it out must know that it's the flip of a coin each and every time. Even Joe and Nicky, however much we would like to think otherwise, will have to deal with this. One will have to go first, and that is tragic and sad, but such is life. Such is living.

Booker cannot realise the reality of humanity in that way. Perhaps death having been denied him flipped the script on him too abruptly. As such, he prefers to keep his issues strong.

Perhaps it started out as a reminder of what he had lost. Nobody is saying he should have forgotten his first life or his family before immortality took over. But if you're keeping your grief alive, it should be either because you believe this is the necessary darkness before the crack of dawn or because you like the rich, pleasant dark, the endless night which evens everything out until sadness is equally important to happiness as emotions go. If you're wallowing for wallowing's sake, then all you're going to become is your grief. All you are is a memory of yourself, and the memory is decaying.

Every frame he's in, Booker is a decaying memory of a man, less alive than those he has buried.

**Blood-Finding**

Booker is living an inauthentic existence. Which is probably the most obvious thing anyone has said about the character or will say, but it's true.

I should start by mentioning that what I loved about the film is its portrayal of found families. I've often been tricked into devoting time and energy into fiction which ultimately found family-baited me every step of the way towards an unsatisfying conclusion. As such, I crave that which seems so elusive to find, and thus I love these five flawed individuals more than I can say.

When Nile is being told that seeing her family again isn't an option, there's the temptation to think of it as an offer of a new family to replace it. It's not. It's a gateway into romanticising the blood family over her new immortal one. Building yet another memory to worship. If she never sees them again, then they will live on in a glass casket of perfection. That which she can never have again. Unattainable like a dream of a life. But she has a new family now, and that should be worth something. However much I might understand the plot reasons for her never seeing her brother and mother again, closure heals wounds. The scars we carry we need in order to move on, which, in this case, means accepting this new family.

How this ties in to Booker's bullshit is his own inability to see exactly what is in front of him. He searched out blood for family, and, when his own blood denied him, he refused to look further. Could never see Andy and Joe and Nicky as anything other than travelling the same road alongside him while he tried as best he could to survive, never glancing around himself for warmth and companionship.

This is the lie he believes, despite evidence to the contrary. In spite of the love he obviously holds for these men and this woman with whom he has shared almost every aspect of his life for centuries. The grass has never been green on this patch of land, not for Booker.

And that is the tragedy of his bullshit. Unless he scents blood, he will never latch on. It's hard to say whether his exile will yield an epiphany or more tragedy, even without Quynh in the mix. The opposite of betrayal, in this case, is devotion. It's about making a choice rather than crying out that you have none. It's about bleeding out regret from every pore.

In the end, I refuse to demonise this man. As mentioned, I understand his demons all too well. But here's the thing: When you fuck up, you get your shit together and make amends. The hurt you brought onto your loved ones doesn't get an excuse or a free pass. Moreover, no one owes you forgiveness; it is theirs to withhold, their right brought on by the hurt you yielded.

And that might be the worst fear which could bring Booker to his knees: Forgiveness is never assured. But _living_ might just be.

**Author's Note:**

> It is odd to ask for kudos on an essay? IDEK. I need me some validation at this point, I think, because this has been a wild ride. But, also, comment and let's have a conversation. Or don't! You do you! :D
> 
> Once more: The [Tumblr Post](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com/post/626920334514339840/bookers-bullshit-an-essay-on-blood).
> 
> Tumblr: [rhubarbdreams](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com/)


End file.
